


Twenty Facts About Gerard Way

by inoru_no_hoshi



Series: Always-a-girl!Gerard [1]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: AU, Alcoholism, Blood, Depression, Drug Abuse, F/M, Genderswap, September 11 Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, vaguely alluded-to attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:31:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inoru_no_hoshi/pseuds/inoru_no_hoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For good or ill, she is who she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty Facts About Gerard Way

**Author's Note:**

> See the warnings? Please take note of them. I did _not_ shy away from subjects I'm aware are serious "no don't D:" ones in the My Chem fandom in particular, because, whether we like it or not, they _are_ part of what shaped (and is still shaping) Gerard. I pulled from RL "canon" as much as possible, tried to treat them with respect and understanding, and wrote from my personal experiences where applicable. ♥
> 
> I totally bugged an amazing number of people for facts while writing this, and while some of the facts aren't mentioned directly, just knowing them helped me shape this, so they deserve acknowledgement and all my ♥♥: [litsasecret](http://archiveofourown.org/users/litsasecret/pseuds/litsasecret), [red_adam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/red_adam/pseuds/red_adam), [kjwcode](http://kjwcode.dreamwidth.org), [silentdescant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silentdescant/pseuds/silentdescant), [atomic_dawn](http://atomic_dawn.livejournal.com), and [AtomicMindfuck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AtomicMindfuck), with beta by [beaconsbright](http://beaconsbright.livejournal.com). Thank you all so much! ♥

1\. Gee gets mistaken for a boy a lot.

It's not that her voice is low - 'cause it's nice, smooth alto that can slide right up into first soprano when she sings. It's not that her hair is short - 'cause it's just past her shoulders, and no one seriously calls that short. It's not that she's hasn't got much chest - she's small, but not _that_ small. It's not that she's a jeans-and-sneakers type - 'cause fuck knows she's not the only woman who prefers that.

It's that her sneakers are battered, her jeans (or cargo pants, which are _wondrous_ things) are always too long and fraying and sometimes hang precariously low on her hips, she's almost always hunched into a too-large hoodie in such a way that her breasts aren't easy to notice, she smokes and she swears and she used to drink, and her weird aversion to showers is totally obvious.

It used to bother her that people couldn't just _tell_ , because she's all for challenging gender norms and shit, but she's a girl and she _likes_ being a girl. Now, though-- Now she lets people assume whatever they want, because it's generally fucking hilarious when they learn they were wrong.

2\. She secretly likes high heels, because she thinks they make her legs look _amazing_. She doesn't generally wear them, though, because she also thinks they're designed to break the wearer's ankles. (She's also convinced her boots don't count, because she can strut across stage in them just fine, thanks, and they've got four inch heels.)

She has to be talked into wearing them for Really Important Appearances. Mikey used to bribe her with chocolate and a good beer (and then chocolate or ice cream or limited edition action figures or comics after she quit drinking). Frank's a little more direct and uses sex to get her to agree. Ray just stays out of it.

(She pouts and fusses and practices for weeks ahead and when she looks amazing on a red carpet or in a photo shoot, she thanks Mikey and Frank and gives Ray a noogie.)

3\. Her name is Gerard. 

She thinks her mom was really fucking high when she was born. That, or she just didn't care that she's not a boy, because she's not sure how else to explain her name. But it's okay; she _likes_ her name. She can't imagine being a Gerald (though sometimes it gets mispronounced or misprinted as that), or a Geraldine (which is just _annoying_ ; she once went three weeks insisting people call her that, and came to the conclusion that she'd rather sound like a boy than a prissy bitch from the 1920s), or a Gerardina (she doesn't know who came up with that, but she'd really like to smack them, because, _no_ ).

4\. She'll go months without showering, because even though she'll remind herself and Frank complains (and sometimes gets fed up and dumps a bucket of water over her head), it just never strikes her as _important_ , and there's always a million other things she could be doing.

When she does shower, though, she makes the water as hot as she can stand and stays in until the water runs cold, because that's the best kind of shower.

5\. She doesn't really get cramps during her periods. She didn't learn that it makes her pretty fucking lucky until art school, because none of the girls in high school really associated with her.

When she does, it's usually because she's also sick. Her default response to the combination is to curl up around a pillow, hide under a blanket, and cuss a blue streak at the world for existing, because it's just fucking _not nice_. (She can't decide what's worse, coughing while on her period, or puking while on her period. She generally damns them both to the lowest level of hell, though, because _ugh_.)

6\. She drinks like beer is water and whiskey is tea and vodka is a nice hot chocolate and doesn't realise how bad it makes her feel until she quits.

7\. She doesn't like being depressed, and sometimes she wonders if it'd be easier to handle if she was male, because as much as it sucks, it sucks even more when it stacks with bad PMS. Then, everything looks colorless and makes her cry and nothing is good enough and, sometimes, she just wants to end it all.

She gets close a couple times, because sometimes, she just can't see why she _shouldn't_.

Mikey's really good at reminding her that there's still stuff to live for - he never says anything when he finds her that far down, just gets a big, soft blanket and hugs her pretty much forever. (She's pretty sure that without Mikey, she wouldn't have survived her teenage years.)

8\. The thing that makes her realize that she's fucked herself up bad with booze and drugs is that she doesn't go to Mikey when she's _this close_ to ending it all - she calls Brian instead. And Brian's great, he doesn't judge, but he's not Mikey.

(When she's sober - truly sober for the first time in years and years - she goes to Mikey and apologizes and cries on his shoulder, and all he does is hug her and say, "It's okay, Gee. It's okay.")

9\. Gerard loves art. 

Singing, writing music, drawing, painting, sculpting, even her stage persona— It's all art, and it's not just a key part of her life - it pretty much _is_ her life. She has no idea what she'd do with herself if art didn't exist.

She likes looking at art, too. And talking about it. And critiquing it. (She gets pillows to the face when she rants at video games about fucked up anatomy, though.) 

(Sometimes she thinks sex is art, too - Frank giggles into her shoulder when she mentions it, and she's not sure if he agrees or thinks she's hilariously adorable. It's even odds on both, knowing Frank.)

10\. She doesn't like bras.

Not because they're Symbols of the Oppression of Women or whatever, but because they're fucking uncomfortable and the straps always fall down her arms no matter what she does. (She even bought a good, fitted, _hundred dollar_ bra and the straps still fell down. That's about when she gave up on them forever.)

So when she really has to have support, she wears a cami. Or makes sure its built in. But mostly she goes braless. (Frank thinks it's gloriously convenient.)

11\. Insomnia is almost as bad as depression, but at least when it's just "Fuck my life why can't I _sleep_ ", she can get up and _do_ stuff.

She'll work on lyrics, and drink too much coffee (though she's not quite sure what, exactly, "too much coffee" _is_ ), and fill up page after page in her sketchbooks, and then, when sleep is still elusive and it's, like, fucking five A.M., she goes and wakes Frank up and tells him to fuck her until he literally can't move.

Sometimes it's enough, and she'll sleep for hours and hours and then, when she wakes up, she hunts down Frank and cuddles him as thanks, and he just kisses her and waves it off as no big deal (even though she knows she exhausts him, and sometimes it makes her feel guilty).

Sometimes, it's great and awesome and she still can't sleep, so she scowls at the ceiling, calls life a stupid fucker, then goes to make a pot of coffee and makes sure Frank gets the first cup, because it's the best way she knows to apologize. (Mikey once told her that he knew she was utterly gone on Frank when she started giving him coffee before she got herself some.)

12\. She thinks it's stupid to judge people by their skin color or gender or sexuality. ('Cause, like, she's pretty much straight, but some girls-- Yeah, she'd do 'em. She's pretty sure Frank would watch with unabashed glee. He's such a _boy_ , seriously. 

(To be fair, she'd totally watch him with a hot guy.)

So she tells the fans that they're perfect just the way they are, don't you ever fucking let anyone tell you otherwise, and she borrows Frank's "Homophobia is gay" shirt and wears it for, like, two months straight before he wrestles her out of it and makes sure it "gets fucking _washed_ , Gee, what the fuck".

13\. She likes sex. She doesn't see why she shouldn't, because hey, her body, her choices, and it doesn't make her a slut or a whore. She generally concedes to "sensual," though.

(The only person who's ever made her feel ashamed of liking sex also fucked her up in a lot of other ways, so she doesn't really blame him anymore.)

14\. Gerard doesn't really talk about the way 9/11 made her feel - mostly because she doesn't have the words to articulate it.

The closest she's come to expressing it is with an oil painting, all stark flame in a confused welter of shadow and light and steel beams and smoke and, somewhere in it, one soul - or maybe thousands, she doesn't know - reaching, screaming, unheard and unseen.

She doesn't sell it or display it, and in fact almost asks - _begs_ \- Mikey to burn it.

(She never tells anyone, not even Mikey, that it's secretly the inspiration for _Black Parade_.)

15\. Gerard thinks Bob's pretty fucking awesome, as sound guy and roadie and drummer and friend and she might, maybe, use him like free psychiatric care. (She thinks he's _almost_ as good at figuring her brain out as Mikey is.)

16\. She likes makeup, and doesn't care if people think it clashes with her grunge look when she does it up classy (or emo, or just really fucking absurd) - her face is just another canvas for her art.

17\. Don't get between Gerard and her coffee. Just don't. (She bites.)

18\. She's ten and Mikey's seven and Mikey's stepped on a rusted nail sticking out of a board they're using as a guide for their kingdom's boundary.

Mikey doesn't really cry, like, at all, so she panics when he collapses, wailing loudly. Mama rushes out and asks what the fuck happened and the next thing Gerard knows, she's in the back seat of the car, holding Mikey close with one arm, his foot in her lap and making sure she keeps pressure on the wound with a clean (not so clean, now) towel with her not-holding-Mikey hand.

He cries and fusses and Gerard just grimly hangs on, and once Mikey's on a bed in the ER with Mama cuddling him while a nurse examines his foot, she wobbles and almost falls except another nurse is nice enough to guide her to a nearby chair (she's amazingly pale, now, which she only knows because the nurse comments on it and suggests she put her head between her knees and _breathe_ but she _can't_ because there's blood - _Mikey's_ blood - all over her jeans).

She can't watch while Mikey's foot is stitched up even though she wants to reassure him that it's gonna be okay, because the nurse is sewing him up like Helena did her teddy bear that one time and she doesn't like the comparison. (Mikey's better than a teddy bear, why can't they fix him better?) Mikey does alright through it, but when the nurse says he needs a tetanus shot, he starts crying again, huge gulping sobs that break her heart.

Gerard thinks Mikey has the right idea, because needles are for fixing teddy bears and clothes and not humans, but she gets up and goes to stand beside his bed. She hugs him and pets his hair and tells him it'll be okay, then asks if he'd feel better if she got the shot first. He nods and cuddles into her shoulder, so she asks the nurse if she could go first, please and thank you, though she's shaking like a leaf and sure she's paler than the sheet on the bed.

(Twenty years later, it's still one of a very small number of encounters she's willingly had with needles, because Gerard and needles are not on good terms.)

19\. She can never decide what she'd rather fangirl more over, working with Grant Morrison or getting to play with motherfucking Brian May from motherfucking Queen. (She thinks she has the _best life ever_.)

20\. Gerard loves her band. Like, a fucking lot. 

She loves their fans, too, and she's never, ever lying when she says they're the best and she loves them and, no, really, _thank you_.


End file.
